[Python-Dev] Optionally using GMP to implement long if available (original) (raw)

Thomas Wouters thomas at python.org
Tue Nov 4 02:03:15 CET 2008

On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 01:37, <skip at pobox.com> wrote:

Benjamin> The main objection is that GMP is licensed under LGPL which I Benjamin> believe conflicts with Python's very open license. >> If GMP itself isn't included with Python how can there be a licensing >> issue? Martin> On Windows, the GMP binaries would be incorporated into Martin> pythonxy.dll. This would force anybody providing a copy of Martin> pythonxy.dll to also provide the sources of GMP. As I understand it the proposal was to allow people to substitute GMP for Python's long implementation. Just deliver binaries with the Python long version if you don't want to distribute the GMP source. OTOH, it should be no big deal to drop a zip archive of the GMP sources which correspond to the code bound into the DLL. OTOOH, doesn't Windows support dynamic linking? Can't pythonxy.dll dynamically link to a gmpMN.dll?

Neither of those (shipping sources or dynamically linking to GMP) would solve the LGPL issue. People who distribute that build of Python would still be held by the LGPL -- such as shipping any sources that they embed that Python into.

-- Thomas Wouters <thomas at python.org>

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